Good Behaviour Read Free

leaned across the bed and rang her bell.
     Then I shouted and called down to Rose in the kitchen. She came up fast, although her feet and her shoes never seemto work together now; even then I noticed it. But of course I notice everything.
    ‘She was sick,’ I said.
    ‘She couldn’t take the rabbit?’
    Rabbit again. ‘It was a mousse,’ I screamed at the old fool, ‘a cream mousse. It was perfect. I made it so I ought to know.
     It was RIGHT. She was enjoying it.’
    Rose was stooping over Mummie. ‘Miss Aroon, she’s gone.’ She crossed herself and started to pray in that loose, easy way Roman
     Catholics do: ‘Holy Mary, pray for us now and in the hour of our death … Merciful Jesus … ’
    She seemed too close to Mummie with that peasant gabbling prayer. We should have had the Dean.
    ‘Take the tray away,’ I said. I picked Mummie’s hand up out of the sick and put it down in a clean place. It was as limp as
     a dead duck’s neck. I wanted to cry out. ‘Oh, no—’ I wanted to say. I controlled myself. I took three clean tissues out of
     the cardboard box I had covered in shell-pink brocade and wiped my fingers. When they were clean the truth came to me, an
     awful new-born monstrosity. I suppose I swayed on my feet. I felt as if I could go on falling for ever. Rose helped me to
     a chair and I could hear its joints screech as I sat down, although I am not at all heavy, considering my height. I longed
     to ask somebody to do me a favour, to direct me; to fill out this abyss with some importance – something needful to be done.
    ‘What must I do now?’ I was asking myself. Rose had turned her back on me and on the bed. She was opening the window as high
     as the sash would go – that’s one of their superstitions, something to do with letting the spirit go freely. They do it. They
     don’t speak of it. She did the same thing when Papa died.
    ‘You must get the doctor at once, Miss Aroon, and Kathie Cleary to lay her out. There’s no time to lose.’
    She said it in a gluttonous way. They revel in death … Keep the Last Rites going … She can’t wait to get her hands on Mummie,
     to get me out of the way while she helps Mrs Cleary in necessary and nasty rituals. What could I do against them? I had to
     give over. I couldn’t forbid. Or could I?
    ‘I shall get the doctor,’ I said, ‘and Nurse Quinn.
Not
Mrs Cleary.’
    She faced me across the bed, her great blue eyes blazing. ‘Miss Aroon, madam hated Nurse Quinn. The one time she gave her
     a needle she took a weakness. She wouldn’t let her in the place again. She wouldn’t let her touch her. Kathie Cleary’s a dab
     hand with a corpse – there’s nothing missing in Kathie Cleary’s methods and madam loved her, she loved a chat with Kathie
     Cleary.’
    I really felt beside myself. Why this scene? Why can’t people do what I say? That’s all I ask. ‘That will do, Rose,’ I said.
     I felt quite strong again. ‘I’ll telephone to the doctor and ask him to let Nurse know. Just take that tray down and keep
     the mousse hot for my luncheon.’
    Rose lunged towards me, over the bed, across Mummie’s still feet. I think if she could have caught me in both her hands she
     would have done so.
    ‘Your lunch,’ she said. ‘You can eat your bloody lunch and she lying there stiffening every minute. Rabbit – rabbit chokes
     her, rabbit sickens her, and rabbit killed her – call it rabbit if you like. Rabbit’s a harmless word for it – if it was a
     smothering you couldn’t have done it better. And – another thing – who tricked her out of Temple Alice? Tell me that—’
    ‘Rose, how dare you.’ I tried to interrupt her but she stormed on.
    ‘ … and brought my lady into this mean little ruin with hungry gulls screeching over it and two old ghosts (God rest their
     souls) knocking on the floors by night—’
    I stayed calm above all the wild nonsense. ‘Who else hears the knocking?’ I asked her quietly. ‘Only